Page 29 of Wild Ever After
“No, Sir.” She’d wanted to say yes, but she couldn’t lie to him.
“That night at the club, seeing you stripped to a corset, boots, and a mask… Your back to the gathered crowd as I unlaced you, baring your back for the Cat… I was so proud that you were mine. I was so proud to show you off. My career. Our reputation in the community. Nothing mattered to me in those moments but us, you so strong and beautiful in your submission. You wanted it as much as I did. I swore I’d take care of you…” The more he spoke, the less steady his voice. He grasped her by the waist and urged her to face him again, the robe still around her thighs and still hanging on her wrists. Her breasts were bare, her nipples tight and hard. But he didn’t touch them. He didn’t even look at them.
Instead, he laid his head against her belly, kissed her ever so gently at the top of the scar where she’d had an emergency C-section when Noah was a breech baby.
That was one of those moments when Harry Walker was scared and looked so helpless it made every part of her ache.
“I’m so sorry I hurt you. I’m so sorry I sent you away. I thought I was doing the right thing by getting you out of the spotlight. I just didn’t want anyone to have the chance to drag you through the mud if they took me down. I didn’t know what I was up against. I… We… I’m so sorry, Bella.”
His tears leaked against her and rolled down her stomach and the emotion caught her off guard. It shouldn’t have. He’d shown depth and emotion before, but this was something she hadn’t expected.
And she had no idea what she was supposed to do, so she did the only thing that made any sense in the moment.
She slid to her knees and held him.
He’d been hurting and it was easier for her to stay away if she believed he hadn’t been. But that was her own stubbornness, her own way of getting back at him. He sent her away, so she’d just stay gone.
Neither of them had been fair to the other.
Married for so long with kinky secrets. Three kids in. And a successful political career.
But they’d never been through anything close to someone trying to ruin them. Not just ruin Harry, but their family, and for nothing more than an election.
Lives had been destroyed for less.
“We could have weathered it all together,” she said. “You didn’t have to do it alone. I know you’re my dominant, but you’re my husband, too, and we took vows to stand with one another, for better or for worse. When something threatens our relationship, we should be stronger together.”
His arms wrapped around her and with little effort and zero resistance on her part, he lifted her into his lap, cradling her against his chest. Her legs straddled his thighs and in the chair, it was a tight fit, but she wouldn’t have traded the intimacy and closeness for a more comfortable seat.
His breath warmed her neck, his scruff abraded her shoulder, his hands gripped her flesh, his fingers digging in.
She inched as close as she could get without crawling inside him
She was as in love with him today as she had ever been.
He was as broken without her as she was without him. She wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t glimpsed bits and pieces of it last night and this morning.
No one had ever had that kind of power over him and he’d sent her away to protect her, not caring what it did to him.
“I don’t want you to remove my collar, but I don’t want to go back to Charleston either.”
She hadn’t planned to say that, but both their defenses were down and it was better to get the truths out in the open.
His tear stained face tore at her and she wiped the remnants with her thumbs, licking at the saltiness. She was rewarded with heat filling his eyes.
Apparently, her desire for him was gearing up to play. Something else unplanned. He had a way of upending her life and what she thought she wanted. All by suggestion. All by his mere existence in most cases.
Because… In the end… All she wanted was him.
“What do you want to do? Where do you want to live?”
“Here. I don’t want to give up my teaching position and I want to live here.”
“Together?”
She both loved and hated the uncertainty in his question. “Yes. Together.” There was no point in denying that she wanted her husband back in her life, in her bed, and spanking her each and every morning as he’d done since she was nineteen.
“Done.”
